General Information: 

Full name: Le Minh Tri
Nickname: Kahunavn
Date of Birth: March 9th 1987
Job: Game Manager in Garena Vietnam
Nationality: Vietnamese
Other talents: Know how to enjoy delicious food
Competition Honors:
• Official FIFA Referee in WCG Grand Final 2009 in Chengdu, China
• Official League of Legends Referee in WCG Grand Final 2011 in Busan, Korea
Favorite Quote: "Action is the real measure of intelligence"
Favorite Stuff: Panda Stuff which bought in Panda Base in Sichuan, China.
Describe yourself: Perfectionism and willing to learn.

 

RGN: Hello Mr.Tri, when did you know about games? 

Kahunavn: I fell in love with games since I was a kid. When I was in grade 6th or 7th, my friends and I started playing Half-Life (Counter Strike) and StarCraft at the Internet cyber. At that time, Half-Life was extremely exciting, so I often skipped class to play games. However, my mother always caught me and beat me up. I still played games until in high school, but less than before because of some more temptation stuff, such as billiard.

 

 

RGN: What was the first competitive game you have attended to? Did you have any prize with that game? 

Kahunavn: The first game I have attended to competition is FIFA. I had joined the FIFA team named 4Eve, one of the first FIFA team in Vietnam, and then in 2006, I moved to 3H team. In 3H team, my partners offered me to be their manager during the period 2006 – 2010. 3H team has won a certain number of achievements in competitions. In addition, 3H team also recruited 3H DotA team, including me and some former members of the NVT DotA team.

 

 

RGN: Now you are currently managing the Game Community in Garena Vietnam. Can you share something about the first steps in your career? 

Kahunavn: When studying the first year in the Faculty of Information Technology of University of Technology, I was fortunate to get working in GG (Garena) in 2006. At that time, I only knew briefly about DotA and usually played DotA with my friends for fun in every single evening. The first activity which I served for the community was a small tournament. That tournament got 8 registered teams, then six teams really competed and the winner was my ...NVT team.

When GG Clients came to Vietnam, I was the one who translated it to Vietnamese. It was really a challenge because my writing was not so good. Currently, I am also working on a new version of Garena Plus, the future of Garena Client with many superior features.

Then I was involved in organizing the WCG Vietnam 2007 in HCM City. It was one of the most memorable WCG and also made me feel the most regret. Because of lack of experience, I accidentally made DotA gamers feel angry with decisions of the referees. The experience which I gained at WCG 2007 helped me held ADC – Asian DotA Championship qualifier round in Vietnam – successfully. This was the tournament set the stage for the path of StarsBoba Vietnam became a major DotA team. At that time, StarsBoba won the first ADC and became the first Vietnamese DotA team who had the opportunity to compete with professional teams overseas.

After that, I tried to build many tournaments for DotA players as BKIT Vietnam Open Games, some tournaments for Internet Cybers... The year 2008 was really a major turning point in my career. At that year, the WCG qualifier in Vietnam was held in unprecedented scale. With some friends, I was assigned the task of organizing competitions in WCG and I have completed all that work perfectly. Thanks for this success, I was growing to be more confident with my chosen path. At that time, the numbers of Garena players at one time jumped to 18,000 and a variety of tournaments were born and maintained.

 

 

RGN: Garena Vietnam was established in 2009. Can you tell me more about your work as well as your role in Garena at that time? 

Kahunavn: In 2009, the first office of Garena Vietnam was established in Hanoi, then in Ho Chi Minh City. These milestones marked the development of Garena and eSports community in Vietnam. I was representing for Garena in Vietnam and operated all activities. Then Garena Singapore invested more into Garena Vietnam and my boss returned to Vietnam to take over the operation of this company.

Two years have passed since Garena Vietnam was officially established. Currently, the number of players at the same time of Garena Vietnam has reached 95,000, exactly what I dreamed of.

 

 

RGN: Was there something make you regret during the time worked in Garena? 

Kahunavn: Over five years working at Garena still remains in my mind. Sometimes, my ability and maturity did not keep up with the development of eSports community. So, there was a time Garena just served only a small group of game players well.

However, my current team is more crowded and talented. This is our pleasure to serve the Vietnamese gaming community better and better.

 

RGN: You had many opportunities to participate in big game events abroad. Can you share some interesting stories for me? 

Kahunavn: I participated in WCG 2009 Grand Final in Chengdu, China as a FIFA referee. That was the biggest event that I had ever attended, along with the SMM and WCG Asia from 2006 to present. The WCG 2009 Grand Final, I had a memorable. As you know, in each WCG Grand Final, the superstars such as Moon, Sky, Grubby or teams like Fnatic, SK.Gaming... were very strictly protected, when these gamers competed. All the audience and the media must stand off so far the stage.

Meanwhile, I was a FIFA referee in FIFA area, which was located next to WarCraft III area. To have those precious photos for Vietnamese gaming community, I have boldly ran through the fence separated the games area and took pictures of the world famous players in very close distance. Because of my arbitration card, the person thought me was the official photographer of WCG organizing staff. I was quite nervous because I feared being found out not responsible for taking pictures. However, things went smoothly and Vietnamese gaming community had precious photos of their idols. In this December, I will travel to Busan, South Korea to be the referee of League of Legends in WCG 2011 Grand Final.

 

 

RGN: Do you think you are being successful at this time? Very few people at your age can do the things which you did. 

Kahunavn: I think I’m lucky to working for a great company like Garena. Most of my success is the result of my colleagues who are very dedicated and hard working. I’m just the one who assembly and help them use their ideas smoothly.

I am a perfectionist and willing to learn. I always want to achieve the best results and try my best. Besides, regardless of work or school, I always try to learn from friends or colleagues to have the knowledge and valuable experience. Perhaps, because of two things above, I already achieved some success until now.

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